Delaware Valley seeing one of the wettest years in a century

Kyle Bagenstose @KyleBagenstose

Wednesday

Aug 15, 2018 at 4:05 PMAug 15, 2018 at 4:05 PM

To date, Bucks County is having its sixth wettest year since 1895, while Burlington County is seeing its eighth. Scientists say climate change will bring more precipitation — that's a problem for Bucks County, which receives the most flood insurance payouts of any county in Pennsylvania.

It’s been déjà vu for the Delaware Valley weather forecast in recent weeks.

Clouds, storms, rain. Rinse, wash, repeat.

But David Velinsky predicted all that eight years ago. Velinsky, an environmental sciences professor at Drexel University and vice president for science at the Academy of Natural Sciences, co-authored a study in 2010 that projected “substantial increases in the frequency of extreme precipitation events, including heavy precipitation” in the Delaware Valley.

The cause? Global climate change, specifically a warming planet.

“Even a small amount of temperature increase, which we’ve seen over the past decades, increases the amount of moisture in the atmosphere,” Velinsky said. “Now that we have more water in the atmosphere, it’s going to come down.”

So far this year that projection is playing out in Bucks County. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that year-to-date, 2018 has been the sixth wettest year on record since 1895, and the wettest since 1996. Total precipitation is now over 40 inches, which is 10.6 inches more than average.

Things are little better in Burlington County, which is seeing its eighth wettest year in that time period. So far 34.7 inches have fallen, about six more than average.

Velinsky doesn’t just think about impacts in the Philadelphia region. He also lives them. Since moving here in 1995, he’s had to upgrade the stormwater system at his home in the city’s western suburbs in order to deal with increased flooding. Several nearby communities flooded Monday as heavy rains fell and the Darby and Cobbs creeks swelled, although his property was spared this time around.

“In 2010 I had to put a bigger detention system underground,” to keep his home from flooding, Velinsky said.

Bucks and Burlington were also largely spared in recent days as other areas of the region saw cars and buildings go underwater, with emergency personnel plucking dozens from floodwaters. But in Pennsylvania in particular, that represents a tenuous change of fortune compared to the past several decades.

The National Flood Insurance Program requires that any owners of properties located within federal floodplains and backed by federally-protected mortgages must purchase flood insurance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency tracks payouts from the program, and its data show that Bucks County property owners received $129 million since 1978, the most of any county in Pennsylvania. Montgomery County was second, at $117 million. No other county eclipsed the $100 million mark.

Among municipalities, Yardley had the most payouts, with 763 total claims resulting in nearly $25 million in payouts. The small, riverfront borough had the fourth highest amount of any municipality in the state, eclipsing the $19.8 million received by the entire city of Philadelphia.

New Hope (7th highest at $15.1 million in loses), Upper Makefield (10th at $13.7 million) and Tinicum (13th at $11.2 million) also ranked high.

Floods have been much less costly in Burlington, which ranks 16th among 21 New Jersey counties with $24.6 million in payouts since 1978. That’s dwarfed by the state’s shore counties, where Ocean County received $2.6 billion over the last 40 years. Among Burlington County municipalities, Lumberton leads with $6.8 million in payouts, followed by $3.4 million in Medford and $2.3 million in Southampton.

But there’s a problem with these payouts regardless of size: in many cases, no one is really paying for it.

That’s according to Carolyn Kousky, an expert on the flood program and director of policy research at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Risk Center.

Kousky says the flood program has been in the red since Hurricane Katrina wiped it out in 2005, and additional hurricanes such as Ike and Sandy delivered additional hits. Presently, the program is about $24 billion in debt.

That means the program has to keep taking loans from the U.S. Treasury to stay solvent, adding to the national debt.

“If the debt is ultimately forgiven by Congress, it hits the taxpayers,” Kousky said.

Kousky said there are a number of problems with the program. Foremost is that it was not designed to deal with “catastrophic” losses such as hurricanes. Instead, the Treasury itself was supposed to directly pick up those losses. That dynamic went out the window in 1978, but the insurance rates were never readjusted, Kousky said.

“Congress didn’t pick up those extra costs,” she added.

Another issue is repetitive loss properties, which can rack up claim after claim, rebuild after rebuild. A 2017 Natural Resources Defense Council analysis found the worst 0.6 percent of properties insured by the program received 9.6 percent of payouts since 1978, due in large part to their constantly being rebuilt.

Kousky said there are a number of solutions, although perhaps the biggest problem is getting lawmakers to agree on one and pass a bill. Congress must regularly reauthorize the program, which often devolves into a high-stakes showdown. They punted on the issue in late July, passing a short-term measure that will expire after the November elections.

If they do take it up successfully, Kousky sees three main solutions. The first is risk communication, which would involve the federal government more clearly explaining the likelihood of flooding even beyond officially designated zones, especially in light of the changing climate. She says under current rules, nobody except the owner of a property can obtain information on how many times a property has flooded, leaving buyers potentially walking into a sinkhole.

“Markets can’t operate efficiently if people don’t have that information,” she said.

The second is reducing risk by promoting smarter development.

“There are just places that we shouldn’t be building, and we do anyway,” Kousky said. “That’s primarily on local governments.”

A third fix is reforming the program’s discounts to assist more low-income property owners. Currently, the program divvies up discounts meant to make the program more affordable based on factors such as the age of the building, which means they are often utilized by more affluent homeowners who happen to live in older homes.

Velinsky, the Drexel professor, sees things only getting worse as the climate continues to warm, sucking up more water and dumping it back down in the northeast part of the United States.

“It seems that his year, we’re in a pattern where this low pressure system seems to hang out (regionally), driving moisture from the south to the north.”

He joins other scientists in expecting weather to become more erratic, with droughts followed by deluges. Just two years ago, the Delaware Valley saw some of its worst drought conditions in decades.

But eyeballing the larger trend lines over the past century, both temperature and precipitation are clearly on the upswing overall. Data from NOAA show that in the last century, 22 years have seen more than 50 inches of total precipitation. Sixteen came in the last 50 years since 1968, while just six came in the 50 years before.

“You can clearly see from the rankings how much rainfall (has) been increasing over time,” Velinsky said.

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